Google Explores New Ground: Equipping the DoD with AI Technology

Summer Danzeisen

April 2018

Google, in a somewhat uncharacteristic move, has tenuously taken the first step in equipping the Department of Defense (DoD) with artificial intelligence (AI) technology for use in intelligence gathering.1Mark Bergen, Pentagon Drone Program Is Using Google AI, BLOOMBERG: TECHNOLOGY (Mar. 6, 2018, 3:07 PM), https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-06/google-ai-used-by-pentagon-drone-program-in-rare-military-pilot.

The U.S. government, already a substantial cloud user, is looking to the corporate technology sector for new systems and leaders in AI to partner with in an effort to better analyze gathered data.2Id. An appropriation of $7.4 billion has been designated for data processing and AI by the DoD3Samuel Gibbs, Google’s AI Is Being Used by US Military Drone Programme, GUARDIAN (Mar. 6, 2018, 6:11AM), https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/07/google-ai-us-department-of-defense-military-drone-project-maven-tensorflow., and Google-competitors Amazon and Microsoft are engaging with the DoD and reaping financial profits. Though Google has previously been sensitive about involvement with the military, its attitude internally seems to conflict with its need to compete for cloud business.4Bergen, supra note 1.

Recently, Google joined the DoD’s Maven pilot project. Maven’s mission is to “accelerate DoD’s integration of big data and machine learning.”5Kate Conger & Dell Cameron, Google Is Helping the Pentagon Build AI for Drones, GIZMODO (Mar. 6, 2018, 10:15 AM), https://gizmodo.com/google-is-helping-the-pentagon-build-ai-for-drones-1823464533. A glut of drone video footage collected daily by the Pentagon has been impossible for human analysts to process.6Id. Maven was tasked with using machine learning to detect and identify thirty-eight categories of objects. Google’s TensorFlow APIs help detect objects in images and flag them for human review.7Gibbs, supra note 3. Google’s hesitancy to be involved in combat issues has been ameliorated by the fact that its current product offerings limit its access to sensitive government data, because, unlike its competitors, Amazon and Microsoft Azure, Google does not have cloud products designed to hold information classified as “secret.”8Conger & Cameron, supra note 5. The lack of those products limits its participation and growth.

While Google struggles to develop policies and safeguards to allow it to further engage in the development and use of its machine learning technologies for the military, the defense department has said that it is undertaking “a competitive selection process to find vendors that can provide algorithms against DoD data.”9Jonathan Vanian, Defense Department Is Using Google’s AI Tech to Help with Drone Surveillance, FORTUNE (Mar. 6, 2018), http://fortune.com/2018/03/06/google-department-defense-drone-ai/. Ultimately, Google must decide either to embrace the profitability of the military marketplace for its AI business or choose to keep its powerful AI technology removed from military deployment.